With Euro 2020 about to begin, we have been holding off sharing this beauty of a top but now we can with Wales’ first game against Switzerland quickly approaching we can finally talk about it.
Making 59 appearances for Wales from 1969 all the way to 1981 while captaining the team for 42 games. Yorath also managing the team for five years guiding them to wins over Brazil and then European champions West Germany while almost qualifying for the 1994 World Cup.
Yorath was also the first Welshman to play in a European Cup final as Leeds were beaten off Bayern Munich in the 73/74 final.
This jersey is from Yorath’s games against Scotland in the Home Championships from the 6th of May 1976 where Scotland got the better of the Welsh 3-1 thanks to an opener from Motherwell favourite Willie Pettigrew.
Probably one of Wales most iconic kits, this symmetrical beauty uses the bright red of the dragon as the main colour with the green and yellow coming from the Royal Badge of Wales. The best thing about this kit may be the yellow Admiral branding on the collar matching the stripes down the side. No Wales kit would be complete without the badge and this one is a beauty, showing the dragon off in all its glory surrounded by the green shield with yellow stars.
Not a common household name, Jan Everse was a left back for Holland who spent all his days in his home country playing for Feyenoord between 1972 – 1977 and Ajax between 1977 – 1980. Everse only played for eight years before being forced into retirement. However, during this short career Jan managed to be called up to both Holland under 23’s and then the Holland national team, winning two caps against Belgium and Yugoslavia.
This top comes from Scotland versus Holland during the European Under-23 Championships in March 1976 where the match was played out in front of an incredible crowd of 32,593 at Easter Road. This Scotland team consisted of players such as Joe Jordan of Leeds United, Derek Johnstone of Rangers and Willie Pettigrew of Motherwell, who would go on to swap jerseys with Jan after the game.
Having won the first leg 2-0, Holland would lose this game 2-0 with goals coming from Derek Johnstone and Colin Jackson. taking the game to extra time and eventually penalties where the dutch would succeed and take their place in the next round of the tournament. The Dutch would soon feel the same heartbreak as the Scots as they were beaten in the semi-final by the eventual winners, the Solviet Union.
This Adidas top is identical to the jersey wore by the Netherlands in the 1976 European Championships as it features the bold black collar with the iconic Adidas three stripes running down the sleeve towards a thick black cuff. A simple top, as all jerseys only featured the badge and the players number (No trefoil on this jersey), the flying dutchmen always make their kit stand out due to their use of the colour orange which signifies the Dutch Royal Family and William I of Orange who led the country to independence back in the day. A bright kit that is instantly recognisable to everyone, fans of the Oranje should remember this top for years to come.
Winner of the English First Division, a UEFA Cup and two European Cups, Welsh full back Joey Jones won it all at club level over a three-year spell with Liverpool but that is not where it started for Jones. At the age of seventeen Joey would start his career in Wales with Wrexham AFC where he would play just under one hundred games during his first spell at the club. It was also at Wrexham where Jones would win his first piece of silverware, the Welsh Cup in 1974-75.
After becoming a success at Liverpool, Jones would return to Wrexham for a second stint and later would retire at Wrexham after a third spell at the club. In between his second and third spell in Wales, Joey would play for Chelsea from 1982-85, where he would win the English Second division in 1983-84, and played for Huddersfield Town from 1985-87.
Joey Jones would play for the Wales first team for over a decade, winning a total of seventy-two caps and scoring just the one goal which would come in 1982 in a 4-4 draw with Yugoslavia. The jersey we are looking at here is from a Wales versus Scotland Under 23’s game in Wrexham where Joey would be placed up against Liverpool teammate and Scotland international Alan Hansen. This jersey was swapped with Willie Pettigrew after the match which Scotland won by 3 goals to 2, with the Scotland goals coming from Willie Pettigrew (2) and Tommy Craig.
The top is all red to match the colour of the Welsh Dragon on the badge which uses a green border to follow the colours in the national flag. The yellow number on the back also matches the Admiral brand sponsor. This top is identical to Wales previous two home kits apart from the brand changing from Umbro to Bukta and then to Admiral, where the top was only worn twice with Admiral wanting to hold off the release of their new home kit until the Wales first team were playing. Admiral would move from this jersey to the famous Wales tramline Admiral top with the branding on the collar, as shown above.
A legend with Die Mannschaft, Andreas Möller has won it all from the World Cup in 1990 to the Champions League in 1997. After starting his career in 1885 with Eintracht Frankfurt, he would move to Borussia Dortmund for just over one million euros. This would be his first spell at Borussia Dortmund where he would leave after his contract expired only winning the DFB-Pokal during his two years before returning to Frankfurt. After leaving Dortmund, Möller would be called up for the Italia 90 World Cup which West Germany would go on to win in the final against Argentina. This would be the last tournament for West Germany before it would be reunified with East Germany.
After leaving Frankfurt for a second time, Möller would this time end up in Italy with a Juventus team that would consist of Roberto Baggio, Paolo Di Canio, David Platt and Antonio Conte. In his first season with The Old Lady Andreas would win the UEFA Cup, beating his previous employers, Borussia Dortmund, 3-1 at the Westfalenstadion and 3-0 at the Stadio delle Alpi with Moller scoring in the second leg.
Juventus came second in the Serie A and quarterfinalists in the UEFA Cup so with Möller being trophyless he would return to Germany with a second stint at Borussia Dortmund where he would go on to win two Bundesliga titles and a Champions League. During the 1994/95 first round of the UEFA Cup, Moller scored the only goal of the first leg when Borussia Dortmund played Motherwell which is where Dortmund would first spot future signing Paul Lambert.
Where Möller is mostly remembered however would be when he scored the decisive penalty against England in the semi-final of Euro 96 as Germany would go on to lift the trophy. Over his career, the German international would be capped eighty-five times for his country, scoring twenty-nine goals.
Euro 96 would be where this Germany home top would be showcased in front of the world. This top has so much detail throughout it, showing off different sizes of the German Football Association logo in vertical stripes. The collar, cuffs and stars above the badge are all in the colours of the Germany flag with a small flag in between in buttons of the shirt. The shirt would not be complete if it were not for the iconic adidas stripes running down each sleeve with the black stripes contrasting along the white shirt. The number seven is not featured on the front of this jersey as this top was used in a German friendly rather than a major tournament as shown in the the photos above.
Terry Butcher began his career in 1976 as a promising centre half for Ipswich Town, with his first England call up coming on the 31st of May 1980 in a win against Australia. He would play a total of seventy-seven games for the three lions over the course of his ten-year international career, with his final England game coming against West Germany where he was in the losing side of a penalty shootout in the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup. Butcher managed to gain seventy-seven caps for England with sixty-nine of those coming under legendary manager Sir Bobby Robson and would captain England on seven outings with three coming at the 1990 World Cup.
While playing for England, Butcher played for Ipswich Town and Glasgow Rangers. During his time at Ipswich, he won the UEFA Cup in 1980/81 also under Sir Bobby Robson’s guidance. After moving to Rangers he then won three league titles in four seasons with two Scottish Cups. After the 1990 World Cup, Butcher would leave Rangers and land his first managerial role as a player manager at Coventry City where he would become the youngest manager in the football league at 32. Coventry would narrowly avoid relegation, finishing sixteenth and after playing six times that season Butcher would announce his retirement as a player. He would later be inducted into the Rangers Hall of Fame, Ipswich Town Hall of Fame and and Scottish Football Hall of Fame.
The top we have here was worn against Wales on the 27th of April in 1982, in Cardiff, where England won 1-0 after a goal from Trevor Francis in the 74th minute. Butcher managed to keep a clean sheet against a Wales team with the likes of Liverpool’s Ian Rush and former Liverpool player Joey Jones while England had stars such as Glenn Hoddle and Ray Wilkins on the pitch that day. This is one of only three occasions where Butcher would wear the number 5 jersey for England, preferring to wear the number 6 jersey once he was firmly established in the England set-up.
Admiral uses England’s iconic blue and red on a plain white jersey using varying sizes of the stripes on the shoulders. The collar and cuffs follow this same colour scheme but uses much thinner stripes. The large red number stitched on to the back takes up a lot of space. Names were not used regularly on the back of English jerseys until the 1992 European Championships. When you think of England and football this is one of the iconic kits that should come straight to mind.
THE KIT RAIL 